


Stealing the 'Verse

by coppersunshine



Category: Firefly, Leverage
Genre: Gen, Unfinished
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:54:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26720974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coppersunshine/pseuds/coppersunshine
Summary: “You’ve got no choice, Mal. If you want the job you’ll coordinate with the other team I’ve chosen. They’re good. Small crew, but they know what they’re doing. Maybe you’ve heard of them. Headed by a gal name of Parker”“Parker? Parker’s insane.”“Well, and maybe I need a little of that, this job.”Zoe spoke. “It’s good money, sir.”
Comments: 4
Kudos: 29





	Stealing the 'Verse

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be the prelude to a larger work that I quickly realized I didn't have the skill to write (large casts are *hard*). I haven't touched it in years, but found it while I was going through old files and I like what I did write enough to share.

The comm crackled. “Sure, I got a job for you, a good job, though I don’t know if you’ll like it. Nothing distasteful, just not all your style. But the money is good.”

“How about you quit hedging and tell us, then?” Mal’s voice was dangerously friendly.

“Can’t give away the details on a comm feed, can I? We’ve had problems with hackers. You’re heading by way of Persephone looking for work. We can talk when you land down. You’re looking at 10,000 credits, half upfront. So I reckon you’ll want to chat. I’ll have a guide meet you.”

The comm clicked off.

“That’s a lot of money, sir.”

“Sure is, Zoe. Makes me wonder what the catch it.” Mal stood. “Wash!”

“Yeah, Mal?” Wash came onto the bridge.

“When about do we touch down?”

Wash fiddled with the readouts. “Well, uh, at this rate in near sixteen hours. But we could make it faster if you had a need.”

“No, that’s fine. Let’s get ready then.”

Serenity had scarcely kissed the ground when the guide appeared, idling at a vendor like she wasn’t waiting for business to commence. When Mal and Zoe strode down the ramp and looked around, she caught his eye and wandered away into the crowd, sure they’d follow.

“Sir,” said Zoe, “How do we know we can trust Skyra? This could very well be a trap, all that money on offer.”

“Sure. And sometimes I think we make it our business to walk into traps. Skyra’s clever, but she’s as honest as any thief. And the money’s good, better than what we’d get smuggling some rich bastard’s goods off world. Keep us in the sky for a good long while.”

They saw the girl duck into an alley ahead, and turned into the alley just in time to see a door nestled in the wall slam shut.

Mal walked through the door with a hand to his gun, Zoe keeping an eye to the alley, wary of ambush.

Skyra laughed. She was standing in the middle of the low, dark room they found themselves in. “Aw, Mal, you’ll hurt my feelings, coming in all ready for a fight. Hello, Zoe.”

“Skyra.”

Skyra was indeterminately middle aged, the conniving mind behind all manner of criminal activity and a fearsome reputation. She was barely five foot, though she made a point of forgetting it. And though it was her brains that made her empire, anyone fool enough to pull a gun on her would soon regret it.

“Come on, sit down. Let’s talk business.”

“Sure,” said Mal. “Let’s hear straight up, ‘cause it makes no sense to me. Why’s our wage so good?”

“Questioning my generosity?”

“Skyra, you ain’t been generous a day in your life.”

Her voice lost its playful edge and she settled into business. “I need you to get into a secure compound, plant a virus so I can hack their system. There’s two houses in the compound. They each have their own security and a larger perimeter extends around the whole compound. They’re business partners, and siblings. Contract for the alliance. They’ve been making things real difficult for my operations, using advanced tech to clamp down on smuggling. So I need the system compromised, but security is tight. I can get you in, but you’ll have to find your own way out once the virus is triggered. It’s a risky job. And there’s a quirk in the system. We can pull down the network security for fifteen seconds before backup comes online, and both houses need to be compromised in that fifteen seconds, so you’ll be working with another team. You’ll need to—“

“We work alone.”

“You’ve got no choice, Mal. If you want the job you’ll coordinate with the other team I’ve chosen. They’re good. Small crew, but they know what they’re doing. Maybe you’ve heard of them. Headed by a gal name of Parker”

“Parker? Parker’s insane.”

“Well, and maybe I need a little of that, this job.”

Zoe spoke. “It’s good money, sir.”

Skyra smiled. “You always were the sensible one, Zoe. Admit it, Mal. You need the job.”

“Fine. We’ll take the job.”

They shook hands. “I’ll let you get back to your boat, I’m sure you have business of your own to attend to. There’s a bar around the corner. Meet me there tomorrow afternoon, we’ll talk details and you can meet your new partners.”

“Remind me why we’re taking this job again?” Eliot growled. “It ain’t like we need the money, and working with unknowns, I don’t like that.”

“We’ve been over this,” said Hardison from the comm. “We can’t take down the Campions alone, and we need that data to get a shot at Blue Sun. Doesn’t hurt someone wants to pay us for it. Gotta keep up the smugglers and petty thieves’ appearance, anyhow.”

Parker sniffed disdainfully.

“I know babe, you’re no petty thief, you’re the best thief in the whole ‘Verse. But we let anyone else know that and the Alliance is gonna come crashing down on our tails so hard even I won’t be able to shake ‘em.”

They stepped into the dim light of the bar, and the bartender nodded them toward a table in the back. Parker could feel Eliot stiffen a little in surprise as they neared the table.

“Zoe,” he said. “Good to see you.”

“Eliot. Been a while.”

“Y’all know each other?” said Mal.

Zoe nodded. “He was in my squad for a while during the war. Got transferred out pretty quick though, headed to specials.”

“Huh. Fancy that. And you must be Parker.”

Parker was well into her aloof mastermind grift; she gave merely a slight inclination of her head and sat down, Eliot sitting cautiously next to her.

“Well, good to see you all getting acquainted.” Skyra broke the growing air of comfortable hostility. “Let’s get to business, shall we?”

It was the sort of job that Leverage specialized in. Long odds with no real hope of success except for the tenacity of three very gifted thieves. Skyra had hashed out all the details she deemed important and handed the rest off on a drive for later perusal, slipping out the back door and letting the two teams face each other awkwardly. 

“Well,” said Mal, breaking the silence. “No point in sitting here. I don’t know what kind of set up you’ve got on Persephone, but it’s probably safest on Serenity, and it’s a mite quieter than this place, at any rate. Unless y’all would prefer we come to you?”

“No,” said Parker. “You have the bigger crew. It’ll makes less noise if we slip onto Serenity. Hardison and Eliot, you’ll pretend to be a couple booking passage on board, it’ll provide an excuse for your presence.”

Eliot sighed. “No costumes this time, alright, Hardison?”

“Excuse you,” Hardison said over the comm, “I like to fully inhabit my characters.”

“And what about you?” asked Zoe.

“Oh,” Parker said, “I find my own way.”

Eliot and Hardison walked the Persephone docks, meandering to look like they hadn’t made up their mind on a ship yet, arm in arm. They got a few weird looks, which Hardison indignantly rebutted. “What, ain’t any of y’all seen two men in love before? Shame on you! And on my honeymoon! No, go ahead, look your fill. You just wish you had a man like mine.”

Eliot growled. “It ain’t us, it’s your damn hat. Damnit, Hardison, I told you no costume!”

“Hey, this hat is the height of fashion in the core!”

“Well, it ain’t exactly helping us keep a low profile, is it?”

“Hush, I’m grifting.”

“Grifting _who?_ ”

They squabbled all the way to _Serenity_ , where a young woman with a parasol sat on the gangplank.

“Excuse me,” said Hardison, in his high-class accent. “Are you taking passengers?” 

“Sure,” she said. “We’ve got room for a few.” She smiled broadly at them. “Headed by way of Osiris, if that suits.”

“Sure, sure. That sounds lovely.”

They had just about finished hauling in some of Hardison’s equipment—Wash and Kaylee’s eyes boggled a little when they learned it was only a fraction of his tech—and Eliot had finished his security sweep, which had mostly been an excuse to poke around and bug the ship, but Serenity’s crew didn’t need to know that.

“How’d you get all this tech? Wash, lookit, he’s got drive-frame brokers. I thought only the Alliance had them.” Kaylee was poking at Hardison’s equipment with glee.

“Oh, you know, here and there. Alliance ain’t half as secure as they like to think.” 

In short order, a makeshift projection screen had been assembled in _Serenity’s_ living quarters. At some point Parker appeared, though none of _Serenity’s_ crew seemed to remember her coming onto the ship. 

Jayne’s voice smashed into the room before he arrived himself. “Hey Mal, you wanted me to watch--” He rounded the corner and stopped abruptly. “Spencer!”

“Jayne.”

Mal sighed. “You’re acquainted?”

“Hell yeah! Spencer’s the best damn merc in the ‘Verse. How you been? Heard you got out of the business.”

“Been keeping a low profile.”

“You’re on the crew we’re taggin’ up with? Hell, I thought this was a suicide mission, but with the two of us on it, those bigwigs won’t know what hit ‘em.”

“They’re lying,” River said. 

“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know” said Mal. “They’re grifters, and a little fancified for my taste, running ‘round the Core planets. But they’re a tight crew. I don’t care if they’re lying, so long as they don’t turn us over to the Alliance or start getting trigger happy.”


End file.
